In the second place—oh but that doesn’t bear thinking about, no oh no.
You play the hand you’re dealt, buddy pal, whispers the voice that apparently has not left him despite its incarnation in the seat behind him. Drive.
In the second place, beside Niko on the front seat is the mason jar with its feather floating, and jagged along the surface of the jar like a photograph of distant lightning is a hairline crack.
Niko drives and the night goes on forever and Niko drives.
WHEN NIKO HEARD his demon splash into the river he got out of the dripping wet sedan, the engine still running and steam glowing in the headlights as it rose from the Franklin’s dark contours. Niko looked up at the solid roof of night and realized he couldn’t run back to the water to help his demon or even look to see where his demon was. From behind him came splashing. “Hey,” he called to a Polynesian man embedded in ice up to his waist. “Can you see what happened to the demon who fell in?”
The man nodded agreeably and said something Niko couldn’t understand. Near the rear of the Black Taxi a chubby man with a patchy beard was embedded up to his thighs and bent over as far as he could to warm his hands in the car’s softly puttering exhaust. “Yo,” he called to Niko. “He’s right there. You blind?”
“I have a curse. I can’t look back.”
“Ooh, some curse.”
“Is my, has the demon gone under?”
“You kiddin? He’s standing right there like he lost a fuckin contact lens. The water’s yay high.” The man put a hand near his hairy genitals. “Hey. You’re that guitar guy aren’t you? Nike, some shit like that. My fuckin kids used to get stoned and listen to you. Bouncin around the house with their fuckin hair and pretendin to play the guitar. Dope dealin little bastards. Fuck, I sent one of em down here.” The man straightened from the exhaust pipe. Melted ice puddled beneath the car. “So you’re here too huh? Like I’m surprised. Weren’t you a junky or something?”
“Or something. Listen—”
“So I guess you’re just mister big fuckin rock star huh? Clothes and a fuckin gangster car for the big celebrity. Whose big ol devil dick did you suck, Mister Dope Fiend?”
Niko started looking around for another source of help. “It’s not like that. I’m sorry but I’m in a hurry—”
“Oh he’s in a hurry. He’s got a fuckin schedule. No shit, I’m glad you’re even talking to a nobody like me. Before you go I wonder if I could get your fuckin autogra—”
“Could you yell for him to come here?”
Patchy Beard crossed his arms. “Fuuuuck you.” He nearly sang it. Niko glanced at the Black Taxi. The well of its reflection on the melted ice. “Call him over and I’ll pull you out.”
“You’re fuckin A, Jackson.” The man made longhorns with his fingers and whistled piercingly and then cupped his hands and shouted. “Yo Batman. Hey ugly. Cmere.” He put his hands on his hips. “He’s coming. Hey how the Yankees doing? Been in the series lately?”
“They lost.”
“Damn Yankees.”
Niko heard his demon splashing toward the shore. “What did you say to me?” his own approaching voice said.
Patchy Beard stopped with his yap half open as he recognized the demon’s voice and then the demon’s face. “Well put my dick in a blender. He’s fuckin ugly as you.”
Niko sidestepped and backed up until he stood before his demon and he craned his neck to look the waterlogged creature in the eye. His demon’s face was changed. The expression lacked the gleeful hostility and brooding menace hewn into cheek and brow and lip. More, his demon looked lost. Still frightening. Still powerful. But lost. “Do you remember who you are?” said Niko.
His demon’s look was unlike any Niko ever saw him wear. The pure befuddlement belied its very design. The demon slowly shook his head and Niko felt a little tug of pity. He sighed and walked past his demon’s burly shoulder, treading carefully on the ice, to open the passenger door. “Climb in,” he told the demon who did not know he was Niko’s demon.
“Whyyyy?” He sounded like a child.
“Because I can tell you who and what you are and why you can’t remember.” Niko smiled as he gestured for the demon to get in. “Trust me.”
NOW NIKO LISTENS to his passenger shiver and shift on the seat behind him. My demon. “Your name,” he tells the thrumming night unspooling there before him, “is Nikodemus.”
“Nikodemus.”
“Does that ring any bells?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Niko bites his lower lip and takes a deep breath and glances at the mason jar beside him. He doesn’t need to see the hairline crack, he feels it in his fissured heart. Is the feather’s glow a little dimmer? It seems to be. He gently lifts the jar and holds it out behind him without looking, left hand steady on the wheel. “Here. Careful with it.” He hopes he sounds less nervous than he feels.
Tendrils wrap the jar and take it from him. “What is it?”
“It’s somebody’s soul.”
Greenish shadows shift. “It’s broken.”
“It broke when we jumped the Lethe a few minutes ago and you fell in.”
“The Lethe.”
“It’s a river. The water causes amnesia.”
“I fell in?”
Niko nods. “It’s why you’re soaking wet.”
“I don’t remember falling in.”
“That’s because you fell in.”
“I’m cold.”
Niko adjusts the heater. “Better?”
A long pause. “You’re mortal?”
“Very.”
“I’m helping you?”
“You’ve been assigned to me. We’re like partners in a race. There’s a bet on whether we can get the jar to the gate. A lot of people are trying to stop us.”
A tendril taps the jar’s screwon cap. “Why don’t I just fly this to the gate?”
He is startled by the suggestion. But no. “There are conditions. I’m not allowed to look back, but you can. They can’t try to stop me but they’re allowed to try to stop you. You’d catch hell if you tried to make it out with that.” He glances toward the rearview to gauge Nikodemus’ reaction and once again is glad and frustrated at the mirror’s absence.
The demon actually scratches his head with a tendril as he concentrates. “Okay. Anything else?”
“If anything happens to the jar we’re screwed.”
Green light shifts. “But something’s already happened to the jar.”
“I think it’s still okay. Just don’t let it break.” The Franklin slurs on a wet patch and Niko nudges the wheel in the direction of the mild skid. The tires regain traction and the Franklin straightens out. “Any other questions?”
“What’s your name?”
Niko senses Nikodemus is distressed by the absence of what he feels should be there. Niko remembers the sensation well. He grips the steering wheel tighter. “Niko.”
“Niko.”
“Sound familiar?”
“No. It sounds like my name though. Are we friends?”
Niko frowns. “Well. We’ve known each other a long time. You kind of work for me.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Niko drives another mile with his mouth pressed tight. The darkness weighs around them with oceanic pressure. We do not drive across so much as tunnel through.
Finally he bangs the steering wheel. “Look,” he tells the hollow dark, “you don’t really work for me. We’re not partners. I made that up. I’m sorry.”
“Oh. What are we then?”
“You were assigned to me, but not for some bet. It was your job to lead me into temptation. To give me a nudge when I was wavering.”